


Consumed by Darkness, You Loved Me

by daretogobeyondtheunknown



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-07 23:52:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13446054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daretogobeyondtheunknown/pseuds/daretogobeyondtheunknown





	Consumed by Darkness, You Loved Me

Somewhere in your chest is a void.

Like you know there should be  _something_. Perhaps a  _lub dub_  or an overzealous flutter. Anything to indicate something more than this emptiness. You are human.

“Ma’am?”

Or maybe you aren’t.

“Kill them.” 

Not anymore.

Because the screams are gut wrenching. They pierce the night sky with palpable anguish. And if anyone could hear, maybe they would rise up:  _fight_. But the world is filled with cowards and stone cold killers and no one bats an eye.

Least of all you.

Blood is blood and the way it oozes from the broken skin - bubbling, frothing and so very warm - carries with it a familiarity. Like the back of your hand or the inner lids of your eyes.

The silence that blankets should be uncomfortable and the blood that begins to pool near the toe of your boot should feel dirty, _wrong_. But it feels no different than the way the droplets of a heavy rainfall pool.

* * *

_**“If you could do anything knowing you would succeed, what would it be?”** _

The stars are beautiful and they paint the black sky with the most intricate of patterns.

Somehow, they make you feel normal and tickle something, somewhere, in the depths of your chest. It feels like what you imagine it should feel like - captivated in wonder and awe - in love with something and capable of emotions far greater than indifference.

Or maybe it is all a lie: the radiance of heat by your side, the endless expansion above you and the beauty light years away that your mind can’t even begin to comprehend. Another lie, a memory of another life replaying in the eye of your mind, apt to deceive you at all costs and make you feel the illusion of humanity and sanctity.

“I would die.”

The laughter reverberates in your chest like sound down an empty corridor.

_**“Very funny. But no, seriously.”** _

There is nothing funny about it.

Because the warmth is an illusion and the stars no longer make you feel normal or tickle something, anywhere, within your chest. It is all just darkness and eternal emptiness.

“I would die. Perhaps then I would find you once again.”

* * *

**“ _No!_ ”**

It arrests you, steals your ability to breathe and captures your heart in a vice grip of torment.

If memories were reality, each night as an almost human slumber consumes you, you would die over and over and over. Nothing about you would exist, obliterated by the darkness of an anguish so human, so real, you swear you must feel  _something_.

**“ _Habibti!_ ”**

Faint whispers of love and adoration roll across your skin. It feels like a prayer, meant only for two, and nothing but a delusion.

The stab to your chest, the steel icy as it parts your flesh, reminds you of a life you can never truly leave. The hot pool of liquid  _burns_  and no matter how hard you try, death always leaves you standing alone, weeping in agony and wishing for its return if only for an instance. 

_**“Do not leave me.”** _

* * *

“Ma’am?”

Her eyes blaze with the same defiance.

It taunts you, goads you to step forward, to end it all. It makes something perhaps tingle and somewhere, deep down, a part of you understands it is not the same. And yet your skin itches and your fingers tremble with unseen desperation.

“ _Release me, I beg you._ ”

The blood on your hands burns. Sometimes, you forget you can bleed too. Granted it never lasts but it still pools – the most brilliant crimson - no different than any other.

If only her defiance could be your defiance and somehow, someway, you could be free of this. Free of the darkness that has done nothing but consume you, striped you and left you to replay this eternal nightmare.

_**“I’m so sorry, Nyssa. I can’t.”** _

* * *

“You are better than this.”

Nothing about you feels better.

“Am I?”

Above the stars shine, struggling to be seen through the thick smog of city life. It seems like a metaphor, for a life you once might have lived, a struggle you might have once fought.

“You are. She always saw it.”

Somewhere in your chest you think maybe it aches.

“And now she is dead.”

But that would require life – something beyond the shell of an existence that you are, no longer human and so very lost.

“She wouldn’t want this.”

The blood that rolls down your body feels as natural as perspiration upon your skin or the exertion of muscles as your body strains. Perhaps it is years of training, the life of a killer in a cold world, devoid of love and compassion. Or perhaps it is just you, the person you have always been, and there are no excuses to hide behind.

“Nor did I and yet here we are.”

* * * 

**“ _I never meant this for you.”_**

It feels like love - broken but oozing with an emotion you know no longer sleeps in your bed or lingers in your soul. 

**“ _I’m gonna fix this.”_**

It feels like a promise of sorts but you’ve heard enough to know that talk is cheap and your dreams even cheaper.

Still you humour it for a moment, caught in a state of delirium that feels perpetually in motion.

“There is nothing to fix, Habibti. What is done is done.”

_**“No it’s not! This isn’t the future you were supposed to have!”** _

There is venom that lines the words, so real, you almost want to believe. But your mind is addled and your soul weak. Once, you used to believe anything. Now you believe nothing.

It makes it all tolerable, if you are honest. It makes the void acceptable though no less present. It allows you to accede what is in place of what was and to acknowledge you will never truly be whole again.

This is simply what you are.

**“ _I’m gonna fix this, Nyssa. I promise.”_**

_* * *_

The sun feels warm.

You aren’t overly fond of the way it touches your skin - so very exposed - but it comforts you. The white froth of the ocean crawls across the sand only to kiss your feet then retreat.

It was all uncomfortable once, alerting your senses to danger, weakness and the potential for an attack. Years later and your body still coils when an unexpectedly loud wave crashes in or a pair of gulls swoops down, clawing at each other’s throats.

Old habits die hard.

“ _Ahm_!”

The force that impacts your knees is strong.

“ _Arbouba_.”

Her hands reach only as high as your waist and you pluck her from the sand with ease.

She smells like unspoken adventure and sings like unrestrained enthusiasm. Somehow, just as she did as a newborn, she nestles in your arms and under your chin with such grace and perfection it feels overwhelming. Like somehow, someway, she was the void and now you feel whole.

“I told you.”

Cradling your child against your chest you smile ruefully.

She had told you. Once. It was like another dream and if you could weep you would have wept because all you ever wanted was this. From the moment you first heard her laugh to the way she held a young child, alone and afraid, under the night sky in Kuala Lumpur.

“ _Habibti_.”

Somehow, someway, they have saved you, brought you from the darkness into the light.

You can still recall, as if it were only yesterday, the feel of blood and the cries for mercy. You recall the unspoken number, of the lives that no longer are because of a darkness you gave reign; unbridled and uninhibited.

The blood of children, much younger than your own, stains your hands. No amount of water or good grace will ever absolve you of that. And yet still she loves you, loves your child, and allows you to flourish in a world you had willingly condemned to a fate far worse than death.

“You know it was never supposed to be like that.”

She refers to the blood and to the shell of a human you had become. To the wretchedness that was slowly poisoning your soul.

The course of your future is as it should be. She reminds you of this often, restless in the darkness and in torment of your past. And yet no warmth, no laughter, no amount of gallant love can take away the images that have been seared into your mind or the screams reverberating in your ears.

Still, you are grateful.

She loves you – overcome death to return to you – and has given you a child so very innocent and willing to love. She invokes the feelings - deep down in your chest - which years ago you knew, somehow, someway, you should feel.

“It was always meant to be,  _Habibti_.”

And though you are impure, bathed in blood and shroud in darkness, you cling to this light, this love, and swear an oath that nothing will ever take this from you. Not ever again.


End file.
